Metalocalypse: Impending Doom

Chapter Seven: Toki

Stupids Nat'ens... Stupids Charles... Stupids Pickle and Moidaface ands, ands... Toki sighed quietly. It was a long day for everyone and of course Toki's was no exception. It didn't help though that the rhythm guitarist hadn't been able to relax for about at least a year.

Nobody else really knew it, but Toki had been trying his best to keep everything together, at least in his own little way. When Pickles had come out, he would regularly encourage him to open up and talk about things, make little pieces of art for all of his band, and try to be the peacemaker of the situation with shenanigans.

Of course everything eventually began to wear him down and Toki stopped being as cheerful as he used to be. Pickles's slow decline into madness and addiction, Murderface's disregard for any basic level of compassion toward really anything, including other bandmates and even himself, Nathan's obvious stress toward the band falling apart. It was too much for Toki to fix, but he still tried, or at the very least tried to make everyone's moods slightly better day by day. Except for Charles.

Ever since he had seen Nathan and Charles together, something inside of Toki had been off. As much as he wanted to be happy for them, and had forced himself to silently support the two, he just couldn't, at least not genuinely.

Toki had been infatuated with Nathan for a while now. Maybe it was from the way the man took care of him and actually... seemed concerned for him, in his own aggressive way. Maybe it was the way Nathan actually paid attention to Toki with the least amount of snarkiness (technically it was Skwisgaar that gave him the most attention, but it was usually filled with biting remarks or snide comments). Or maybe he was just a messed up weirdo for liking such a big, protective man. Maybe Toki was just really, really gay but also somehow not gay because he'd definitely slept with women before.

Regardless of the reason, it stung to see Nathan with their literal manager. Toki wasn't sure if they were together-together or just messing around, but every time he saw Nathan choosing to stand next to Charles rather than anyone else, or they shared a secret, intimate glance that no one else seemed to notice or understand, it hurt him to his very core.

Which Toki knew was stupid and selfish and made absolutely no sense, because he wasn't actually with Nathan and they had never even established any type of romantic interest. The most that Toki did was cling to his arm like a little puppy, acting like an embarrassment which he knew upset the other man sometimes but he couldn't help himself. He didn't have a lot of self-control.

Apparently, though Nathan and Charles's interest in each other wasn't noticeable to anyone else, Toki's obsession with Nathan was very obvious to everyone, except for Nathan himself. Toki knew they knew, he could see it all on their faces; Pickles looked disturbed, Charles looked annoyed, Murderface looked... like he normally did, and Skwisgaar, looked oddly disappointed. None of them treated him any differently, and this was what compelled Toki to push his luck and keep going.

Until Pickles had actually called him out.

Earlier that day, when Toki and Nathan had gone to check on the drummer and he ended up staying to take a short nap, the red-head actually ended up mentioning Toki's little crush situation with him.

Toki really didn't sleep that long and found himself curled against Pickles's side with an arm draped over him sweetly. He blinked awake and looked up at the other man who was staring up at the ceiling. The only smells filling his nose being alcohol and vomit, but not that bitter, horrid scent he had breathed in earlier... He flinched. He didn't want to think about that.

Toki must have shifted a little too much and alerted Pickles, because he looked down at the young bandmate in slight surprise. "Hey dood. T'ought yew wanted ta sleep?"